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Greenpeace: The Price of Fame |
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By Diego Cevallos*
Greenpeace turns 30 with all the luster - and the scars - of maintaining a place in the spotlight.
MEXICO CITY - The environmental organization Greenpeace reaches its 30th anniversary on September 15 with a great deal to celebrate: fame, influence and a history of epic proportions. But also with some complaints: shrinking membership and criticisms about its alleged extremism and superficiality.
Greenpeace was born in 1971 when 12 activists aboard an old wooden boat were able to stand in the way of a United States nuclear test in Alaska. Thirty years later, the group has more than three million donors, six ships and offices in 39 countries.
Its pro-environment actions, often theatrical and risky, are irresistible stuff for the media, and that is one of the group's main objectives. Practicing ''non-violent civil disobedience'' as a last resource for defending the Earth is the Greenpeace strategy.
But it also demands that its activists research each issue they champion, that they work with local communities and pressure for changes in national legislation, according to its leaders.
''I am pleased that Greenpeace is turning 30. The value of this organization lies in being the international voice for the planet's problems. Its strength is that it is a voice of authority that is recognized by governments,'' Jenia Jofré, president of the Chilean non-governmental Pro-Defense of Fauna and Flora Committee, told Tierramérica.
But not everyone has something positive to say about the international environmental watchdog. Patrick Moore, one of its founders, said last year that Greenpeace has become dominated by leftists and extremists who do not understand science.
Last month, Mexico's assistant secretary for Agriculture, Víctor Manuel Villalobos, asserted that those who oppose the production of genetically modified food, as Greenpeace does, ''exist only to sell their brand of ecological terrorism.''
For Brazilian journalist Vilmar Berna, who in 1999 was awarded the Global 500 prize by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the goal of seeking media attention seems often to have led Greenpeace to neglect scientific endeavors.
The Greenpeace campaigns ''sometimes does not wait for maturity, for in-depth scientific verification,'' and that opens the door for the big corporations that it targets to ''challenge the charges, twist its words and launch a counterattack,'' Berna told Tierramérica.
But ''these critical observations do not outweigh Greenpeace's merits,'' he said. ''If only there were other organizations with its international capabilities and presence.''
The environmental group, which is financed by donations from its members - who cannot be governments, private companies or churches - insists that all of its actions are based on rigorous research and that accusations of its extremism are unfounded.
In the 1980s, Greenpeace was at its peak with some five million members, but its roles have been shrinking since, to the three million it tallies today. Nevertheless, the group's initiatives have not lost force or transcendence.
Over the last three decades, Greenpeace's denunciations have put environmental problems on the front page, leading the way for legislative reforms, government measures and international treaties - achievements even its critics recognize.
Greenpeace leaders remember with a mixture of pride and anger that their actions reached such importance that in 1985 France's secret service, tired of the environmentalists' opposition to its nuclear test, blew up a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, killing one activist.
Greenpeace has been active in Latin America since 1987 when it opened an office in Argentina. Later, in 1992, it set up operations in Brazil, and in 1993, in Mexico and Chile. These are small offices, and the volunteers who support them are few compared to other parts of the world, though Latin America has already accumulated a thick file of pro-environment initiatives.
In Argentina, where there is a permanent staff of 23 people, 100 volunteers and 18,000 donors, Greenpeace is credited with having stopped construction of a nuclear waste site, won the enactment of a law on wind energy and fomented the manufacture of refrigerators that use materials that do not harm the ozone layer.
''Greenpeace has not completely changed the environmental situation of Argentina, but nor has it left it like it was before,'' says Oscar Soria, communications director for Greenpeace in that country.
There, as in Brazil, Chile and Mexico, Greenpeace activists periodically make a splash in the media with their attention-getting actions.
In Mexico, where the office has 17 staff, 12 volunteers and around 3,000 donors, Greenpeace's first action was to place a gasmask on the face of a famous statue in downtown Mexico City to denounce the capital area's severe air pollution problem.
The Greenpeace team in Chile, meanwhile, is made up of 10 staff and 1,400 donors, and their efforts are largely seen as responsible for the cancellation of plans to build industrial incinerators.
At the Brazilian office, 28 people hold permanent positions and there are 14,000 donors. The activists there report that they have won a ban on the cultivation of transgenic soy and they highlight their campaign in defense of the Amazon.
''We don't necessarily share their methods or style, or even some of the concerns they consider central… but their merit lies in their activism on global problems,'' said the president of the Chilean Pro-Defense of Flora and Fauna.
* Diego Cevallos is an IPS correspondent.
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